


ghosting

by theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes



Series: haunt [1]
Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Ghosts, Haunting, M/M, POV Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Spooky, geralt is doing his best
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-29
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:27:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22457956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes/pseuds/theredtailedhawkwithjewelsforeyes
Summary: “Why are you doing this,” Geralt asks- he is tired. He has not had the time to mourn Jaskier with him right there at his side. “Jaskier. Why are you here?”“Where else would I go?” Jaskier says- bloody teeth.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: haunt [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1620061
Comments: 572
Kudos: 3264
Collections: Abby's Witcher Collection, Angsty Angst Times, Best Geralt, Finished Fics I Love, GERALT AND JASKIER ARE FUCKING GAY, Geralt is Sorry, Interesting Character and/or Interesting Relationship Development, Procitano





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> title from ghosting by mother mother

“I swear that horse knows all your secrets,” says a familiar voice, a little flat. It comes from right next to Geralt’s ear and he tenses and whirls, hand automatically on the pommel of his sword, and-

There’s no one there. Of course there isn’t. 

Jaskier is dead, buried half a year to the day. But there is always a voice whispering over Geralt’s shoulder, a cold spot in the air. A tension, electric, charging the atmosphere. 

Sometimes Geralt sees him, red silks and an exasperated expression- he’s always leaning back, arms crossed, a little bored. Not the whirlwind he’d known. His teeth are bloody. 

Jaskier is dead, but he is not gone. He follows the Witcher wherever he might go, curious blue eyes flashing hollow from the corner, a wet sounding gasp in the middle of the night. He breathes out gurgles, mockeries, a lilt of song from the corner. 

Geralt doesn’t know if he knows he’s dead, sometimes. If he does he doesn’t appear to mind- he has his lute in his hands, same as ever, and he snorts when Roach flicks her tail as if to brush him away. He’s always there, sitting cross legged on Geralt’s bedroll, firelight flickering yellow and strange in his eyes. 

“Why are you doing this,” Geralt asks- he is tired. He has not had the time to mourn Jaskier with him right there at his side. “Jaskier. Why are you here?” 

“Where else would I go?” Jaskier says- bloody teeth. 

-

Geralt hadn’t been there when he died. If he was, he’d probably still be alive. Simple as that. 

He’d never gotten to apologize, either. Harsh, biting words he can’t take back. Jaskier had been playing in the West, and Geralt had been sulking in the North, and then one day he’d woken to see him, pale, half glowing against the night. He hadn’t seen it, of course, but the open wound cutting across Jaskier’s throat makes it obvious as to what had happened. 

It doesn’t seem to affect his ability to talk or sing. Because he’s dead, Geralt’s mind supplies, taciturn, colorless. It’s a fact, and Geralt hates it, and Jaskier- 

“You look terrible, Witcher,” he says, all vague concern as he leans over Geralt’s shoulder and drips ruby. (He does everything vaguely, half connected to the world. When he sings it’s hollow and haunting.) “Penny for your thoughts?” 

Geralt just shakes his head. He thinks he would prefer it if he were mad, so he didn’t know the truth of those hollow eyes. 

But others see him too. A shadow at his back, a flash of silks. A bright grin that fades the second you put your eyes on it. A shiver in the sunlight. 

“ _Melitele_ ,” Yennefer breathes, softly, when Geralt comes to her. He is exhausted, and the loss of Jaskier burns, and the unfairness of him staying is worse. This is not what Jaskier would want- he knows this. He’d hurt him but the bard was good, and kind, and always striving for lightness. He would not want this pale shade, looking at Yennefer with disinterested blue eyes. 

Or perhaps he would. Geralt had traveled with him for years, but Jaskier was a human and so he’d never let himself know him like he deserved. He doesn’t know where Jaskier came from, where he studied, why he’s always so eager to please and why he pretends as though he’s not. 

He’d _pretended_. Jaskier’s dead, red smile across his throat, half a song in the corner. 

He is exhausted with the grief of it. He does not let himself feel, and he feels this anyways. Sharp, aching, unfair. The absence of a heartbeat. 

“Melitele,” Yennefer breathes, and takes in the sight of it: Jaskier, bloody, Geralt with his shoulders slumped. “Is he-” 

“Do you think,” Jaskier interrupts, idly making his way closer to the Witcher, “that I could pull off lipstick like that?” It’s morbid. His lips are already painted dark with blood. “Maybe then you wouldn’t’ve-” 

“Please,” Geralt says, softly. He does not beg and he’s begging now. She takes them in- a Witcher, living, and a bard, bleeding false onto her floor. “Please,” he says again, and she nods. 

-

Jaskier is cross-legged on the bed. When he is disinterested with proceedings he often disappears but he’s here, now, feet tucked primly under him even though his eyes are somewhere around the ceiling. Geralt had asked him to stay and had not been acknowledged, but. He is here. 

Yennefer suggests banishing him and Geralt is grunting out a “ _no_ ” before he can even think. So they are in front of him, standing, a Witcher and a witch. 

“Do you know you’re dead?” she asks, head tilted curiously to the side. Jaskier glances at her, pale. 

“You’re not,” he points out. He has his lute- he plays a chord. Minor. It sounds odd and strained. “Why should I be?” 

“Because you died,” she says. Jaskier lifts a finger and delicately touches his split-open neck. 

“But I’m here.” 

“But you’re here,” Geralt agrees. The bard looks at him, something sparking curiously in those eyes, and then he turns back up to the ceiling in obvious dismissal. Yennefer hesitates, then turns to Geralt. 

“You won’t banish him,” she starts, slowly. “How do you expect-” 

“I want him to be peaceful,” Geralt says. He is so fucking tired, too tired to hide the rawness in his voice. He has met one ghost before and he’d sliced it away with a silver blade but it had screamed and died slowly like a human. Like Jaskier must’ve, because he wasn’t there. “I want him to be able to rest.” 

“He wants to get on with his life,” Jaskier informs Yennefer, sweetly. Bloody teeth, but he doesn’t seem to mind. “I’m proper spooky, now. Can’t sing him any songs, can’t wash guts out of his hair. No use for me anymore.” he opens his mouth in a smile, keeps opening it until it cracks and splits, and then he vanishes- he takes all his blood with him. Geralt sits, closes his eyes. 

“This isn’t him,” he says, and when he looks up at Yen she’s nodding. Her face is pale as she looks to where Jaskier was. 

“I didn’t like him but- he wasn’t like _that_. What do you think-” 

“He won’t tell me what happened.” Geralt looks up at a wet gurgle and finds Jaskier investigating a corner and drowning in his own blood, and it sends a tight shiver through his whole body even though he should be used to it. (He could never get used to it.)

Yennefer nods, resolutely, taps her lower lip with her finger while she thinks. “I think we need to find out.” 

He hears a ghosting laugh over his shoulder, and when he turns no one is there.


	2. Chapter 2

“Alone,” Jaskier says. He is looking at Yennefer, not Geralt, but the accusation is his tone is all for him anyway. “How will you die?” 

Yennefer grits her teeth. She had not liked Jaskier and yet he does not deserve this creature that makes her skin crawl. “Tell me how you died,” she says, again, weaving a compulsion into her voice, and Jaskier cocks his head at her curiously. His eyes are hollow and she knows without him saying anything that this magic will not work without him allowing it. 

Still: “alone,” he repeats, softly. “Frightened. I-” she can see him try to disappear, but she’s warded the room and he just flickers in and out of existence rapidly. “Let me go,” he snaps. 

“ _ Tell me how you died _ .” 

There is a noise bubbling in his throat, half a whine and half a shriek, and Geralt makes a movement at her side like he wants to turn away but doesn’t. He’s a brave man- she’d told him to wait outside but he’d insisted, voice steady, on staying. 

“I don’t remember,” he eventually bursts out- his lute is cracked in his hands, Yennefer sees. The strings are broken, curling helplessly, and it’s dripping, and he’s dripping too. Streaming blood down his front to puddle on the floor, so much of it that’s it’s splashing and soaking the rich carpet. His face is twisted into a scream, a frightened rictus, and then she blinks and he’s back to that sullen bard, arms crossed over his chest. She blinks again, has to fight to keep her face calm. Of course he’s irritating even in restless death. 

(Irritation is always better than fear.)

“Jaskier,” Geralt says, his rumble of a voice a little strained- Jaskier is right in front of him, suddenly, half an inch away and tilting his head back to look up. His neck wound spurts and she can see Geralt’s shoulders tense even further. 

“ _ Jaskier _ ,” she snaps, and when he twists to look at her he looks a little confused. His blood is staying politely in his neck. 

  
“Yes, witch?” 

“Why are you here?” 

He blinks at her. “What do you mean?” 

Yennefer knows- she  _ knows- _ that magic will do nothing against him, not really. She can keep him in here but he is choosing to stay, choosing to follow Geralt around, choosing whatever the hell this is. And Geralt will never, ever try and get rid of him the old fashioned way. She knows this. It makes her hands clench at her sides. The Witcher is not her friend, really, but there is something in his posture that makes her ache. “ _ Tell me what happened _ ,” she snaps, her voice electric with magic. 

“No,” Jaskier says, and his voice is so icy cold she shivers, and then he flickers out. 

Damn. 

-

Their journey is cold, even though they are heading steadily southwest. Yennefer opens a portal, steps through, and looks back to see Geralt and Jaskier shoulder to shoulder on the other side. 

Of course. This has always been their damn story, and they were always one for the dramatics. She goes back through, buys a horse. 

(She knows why Geralt is drawing this out. When they find what happened, they can release Jaskier, and then he’ll be gone forever.) 

The journey is cold, and Jaskier is colder. He keeps them up with his wanderings- he blows out the fire, murmurs songs right in their ears. He looks at Geralt, empty eyes, and talks talks talks. 

“Did you know I loved you?” he asks, and the Witcher makes a noise so pained and human Yennefer flinches. 

There are good days and bad days. Sometimes Jaskier doesn’t seem to realize he’s not alive, and he chatters on, and the problem is that all of his words are empty and tinged just slightly with iron. Sometimes the problem is that he can’t stop screaming, loud and desperate in their ears. Sometimes the problem is that he just looks at them, flat and cold. 

He’s Jaskier, come back slightly to the left. Jaskier without all his sweetness and empathy and pithy remarks. Jaskier who keeps his mouth stubbornly closed about what happened, looks in turns angry and bored and confused when they ask. 

Some clues: the slash across his neck. The way his lute appears, sometimes, cracked and broken and bloody. Snapped strings. A song he sings for hours on end, sometimes, looping, cutting off halfway with a strange choking noise through before he starts again. He was in the West, Geralt says through gritted teeth, when he died. Skellige, presumably. 

“Ard Skellig is lovely,” Jaskier confirms, dreamily. He’s sitting up against Roach, and Roach doesn’t seem to know whether to move away or not. “Do you know, Geralt, the people there actually like my playing? Lots of people do, of course, but it’s nice to have the reminder.” 

“I like your playing,” Geralt says, quietly. It’s become a familiar note in his voice, that quiet defeat, and Yennefer doesn’t like it. 

“Pie without filling,” Jaskier shoots back, sweetly, and then smiles bloody and disappears. Yennefer puts a hand, carefully, on Geralt’s arm- he is a friend, not only through destiny, and he looks so terribly sad. 

(A Witcher doesn’t feel. That’s what the stories say, anyway. Yennefer had believed it, too, when she’d met Geralt- even with him practically fussing over Jaskier, he’d been all careful barriers. Grunts and flat eyes. The way she can see, now, he’d like to be. 

But he is soft, under everything. He cares fiercely.) 

She says nothing. There’s nothing to say. But she keeps her hand steady on his arm. 

-

They closer they get, the more skittish Jaskier seems to be. He plucks at his lute, the same tone over and over and over until her teeth are gritting with it. It’s better than the alternatives, so she stays quiet. 

“I was very cold,” he informs them. He is walking along behind Roach, behind Yennefer’s mare, and then he is in the path in front of them so suddenly the horses balk. He seems to enjoy it, all the attention on him. A leftover, perhaps, of when he was human. “All over. They’d left by then, you know, and I was freezing, and I kept thinking- once I buried myself up to my neck in snow, and when my mother found me she screamed at me for hours. It felt a bit like that.” 

“Why?” Yennefer asks, wearily. Anything could be a hint. She wants this to be over- a favor for a friend, a favor for a man she’d once known. Is it worth it? She looks at Geralt and knows it must be. 

“I wanted to know what it felt like to die,” Jaskier says, all bright and cheerful again. He strums a cord on his lute, but his lute is bloody and the strings are broken so it twangs out of tune. 

The closer they get, the more skittish Jaskier seems to be. The closer they get, the more he talks- he looks worse, sounds more alive. It’s not necessarily a change for the better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i had to do (witcher wiki) RESEARCH for this do u know theres apparently not a southern part of the World and also this isnt middle earth bc its not even earth??? they have a different orbit around the sun than we do Apparently it's elliptical and full moons last for several days. whyd they do all that


	3. Chapter 3

Jaskier is dead. 

Jaskier is standing next to him on a boat, wind whipping at his hair. He has his arms outstretched, face raised to the sun, and were it not for the slash across his throat Geralt could think he’s alive again. 

He isn’t. His head goes back, back, back, and then he makes a choked off moan, and then he disappears. 

Geralt does not have much experience with ghosts. Unfinished business is generally what they’re hoping to solve, and he supposes Jaskier has plenty of that, but-

But. He doesn’t know how much of this creature is Jaskier. All he knows is that seeing him is sharp in his chest. He has the bard’s face but he has none of the spark behind his eyes. 

“Why not just stick me with that- that great big _blade_ ,” Jaskier murmurs into his ear. Geralt doesn’t flinch. “It’s silver, right? You’d be rid of me.” It’s a good point. Is it Jaskier enough to help? 

A Witcher shouldn’t feel and a Witcher shouldn’t hope, but Geralt carries it close to him anyway. A prayer to anything that can hear him for a miracle. Jaskier is right here by his side, a cold shadow, and so perhaps-

A Witcher shouldn’t hope. He will not articulate his dreams. A peaceful end to his friend is all he can wish for. 

Jaskier is dead, but he’s not gone. He will not say what happened, so Geralt will find out. Exhausting, likely thankless, but the bard had been good and loyal and kind and he’d never gotten to apologize for cruel words. 

-

They arrive at Holmstein’s Port, disembark three in a row before Jaskier flickers off and leaves them. It’s nighttime, so the act is only seen by a couple of drunkards, and Geralt knows he won’t stray far. It’s him he sticks to, with his gruesome smile and words and songs. 

He’s half grateful for it. Humans are always looking to kill a monster, and he doesn’t want anyone offering coin for Jaskier no matter what he’s become. 

He only appears again hours later, sitting on Geralt’s bed with his lute in his lap. “Isn’t it lovely here? You should’ve heard the crowds when I sang, you would’ve thought I was famous. As, of course, I rightly _deserve-_ hardly wanting for company.” An over-the-top wink.

“Get off my bed,” Geralt grunts- sometimes he likes to pretend that this is Jaskier, alive, chattering away. Sometimes he’s too tired for even that. He feels stupid with it, with how much he cares over one human, but seeing him like this has made its mark. Jaskier blinks up at him, wounded, dripping. 

“A little sympathy for the dead man, if you please,” he says, cheerfully, and Geralt tilts his head, because Jaskier hasn’t quite admitted he’s dead, before. Jaskier blinks, again, reaches pale fingers up to the gash in his throat. There is a long silence. Geralt hasn’t heard his heartbeat for a year and yet it’s still a strange cold absence. “Everything is a little clearer now.”

There is a note in his voice, half wistful, half sad, and then he is gone. 

Geralt will talk to Yennefer in the morning. For now, he sleeps. 

-

Geralt does not dream, generally, but tonight he does. Bright fever flashes. Gaudy silk, a song on his lips. When he wakes up Jaskier is quietly thoughtful in the corner, doublet buttoned up to cover his neck. He follows silently, doesn’t try to make trouble and doesn’t try to vanish. 

It feels like an end. 

They ask questions. The port-city is loud and bustling and impermanent, but there are stories to hear about the pretty bard who came with tales of the North and Witchers even though it’s been a year. 

“Sweet boy,” an older woman says- she’s wiping the tables in a tavern in a business like fashion. “Couldn’t keep his cock in his pants, but that’s bards for you. Oh, hello,” she adds, seeing Jaskier. “I mean no offense.” 

Jaskier gives her a pale smile, and she bustles away. 

“Slept with someone you shouldn’t?” he hears Yennefer ask in an undertone. 

“You’re one to talk, witch,” Jaskier snipes back. It is so damn familiar that it sort of pangs at him, but he just squares his shoulders. 

“Are you ready to talk yet?” 

-

The bard and the ghost. Is it really so inconceivable they’re the same person?

They had been friends, but Geralt doesn’t have friends. He keeps everything all locked tight inside, and he had tried but not hard enough. 

It is easier to be alone when you don’t ask, so he hadn’t. He has a past and so did Jaskier, and Jaskier was his own whole person before he’d met Geralt, and there are things that happened Geralt will never know. He wants to know them, now, but Jaskier is gone and Jaskier remains. 

-

“Geralt,” he says, icy fingers on the base of his neck. Cold sweat, but a Witcher doesn’t sweat. “Are you ready to listen?” 

-

Jaskier is dead. He died a year ago, more than that, and they are standing lost in the city where it happened, and he is right beside them with blood on his lips. There and not there. 

“I died alone,” he says, sweet tone on acid words. 

“Think,” murmurs Yennefer, her brow furrowed tight- he has put her through much in this and still he needs to let Jaskier rest. One last favor, for destiny’s sake. “Think. The throat, the lute, the song.” 

“Silenced,” Jaskier agrees, bubbling. “Oh, very good. Very, very good.” 

Who would want to silence a bard? 

Someone who doesn’t want stories told, or someone telling a story of their own. And Jaskier tells stories of a Witcher. 

“Bait,” says Geralt, heavily. 

-

It is not the first time people have died for him. He wishes there was no first time. He wishes he’d never snapped at Jaskier on the mountain. 

It’s unfair. Life is unfair. It’s taken a bard for a Witcher, a jewel for a weapon. 

There is nothing to do but look.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would like 2 apologize for all the chapters being 1000 words but for some reason it feels like more would be clunky??? also hello second chapter in one day


	4. Chapter 4

They find him tucked away like a fairy tale. 

He has been dead for a year and he does not look it: he looks asleep, like any moment he might open his eyes. Jaskier stands beside Jaskier, bloody and pale, and bears his teeth. 

It hadn’t taken so long to find him after all. A Witcher and a witch, showing up to ask questions about a bard; they’re walking into a trap. Geralt doesn’t care. He kills them all, slicing through them like the monster he’s supposed to be, and then he breaks the lock off the room they’d been guarding and there he is. 

There is a man beside him- old. He lifts his fingers to do magic and Geralt takes his hands. 

“What were you hoping to achieve?” he snarls- he feels every inch a Witcher. The old man screams, sucks in a breath and screams again, and Jaskier is dead and he does not stir and he is dead and screaming right back into his face. It is loud, loud, loud in the room, swirling and angry, and Jaskier is dead. 

Yennefer flicks her fingers at him, and he is suddenly bound. Geralt places his sword on the floor, carefully, so he does not give in and run the man through. Not yet.

-

Blood magic is old and cursed and rarely ends well. Blood magic seeps in and rots everything it touches. Blood magic causes death and pain. 

A decade ago, a group of rogue sorcerers came together with a plan. A Witcher-beast that they controlled, used as a weapon. They did not know Witchers then and they do not know them now, lying dead on the floor. 

A decade ago, a plan had been set into motion. Foolish, of course, but within the echo chamber of a group of madmen it had grown and blossomed. They heard tales of the Butcher of Blaviken, heard tales of his bard. Seen the way the two traveled together. The old man says this with eyes sparking, freezing cold. 

Here's how it goes:

The Witcher and the bard stop travelling together. Word spreads. He is seen singing across the Continent, heading West. They follow. He docks in Holmstein’s Port, sings three days, and they kill him on the fourth. 

Slowly. Carefully. They bleed him out, bleed him dry, wring every human drop from him, and they gather his blood carefully in vials. They know if word spreads the Witcher will come, but Jaskier does them one better. 

“Shut _up_ ,” Jaskier snaps, spitting bloody into the sorcerer’s face- it lands and disappears within the space of a second. “I didn’t do it for you.” (He seems lucid, if angry. Standing over his own body like he’s guarding it, cracked lute in his hands.)

Blood magic is old and cursed and rarely ends well. There are still vials of Jaskier’s, lined neatly in front of his coffin, and he looks asleep. More like himself than Geralt has seen him in a year. 

“Why did you keep him?” he asks, words ash in his mouth. The old man looks at him, confused, sobbing and dying and draining out. 

“There’s no use in wasting fresh blood.” 

-

And.

-

Jaskier is dead, and Jaskier is a shade splattered in red, and Jaskier is asleep on the table, tiny corked bottles in rows. Blood magic is old and cursed and rarely ends well, and he has been used as a source for a year. 

A memory: screaming right next to his ear. A bright happy smile when Geralt had bantered with him. Splitting lips, splitting cheeks, his soaked ruby doublet half unbuttoned. Human and brave, following along behind him even in death. 

Jaskier is not dead. 

-

And

-

They find him tucked away like a fairy tale. 

He has been dead for a year and he does not look it: he looks asleep, like any moment he might open his eyes. Yennefer pours the little bottles into his mouth, one after another, blood back to blood.

It is a bad idea and they both know it, but the little room is crackling with energy and the old man is dead and Jaskier is there, on the table, red lips and hands crossed over his chest.

And

  
  
  
_(he wakes up sick screaming choking on blood he wakes up so cold he wakes up angry angry angry he wakes up glowing from the eyes and neck and heart he wakes up wanting to hurt_

_he does not know who he is and he does not know what he is but he knows he hates this man in front of him, silver hair and golden eyes, and he knows he loves this man in front of him, and he does not know what’s happening he doesn’t know he doesn’t know he doesn’t know he doesn’t know_

_his whole world is freezing icy hot barbed sentences that slip out songs that he doesn’t remember a world that he doesn’t remember and it’s at his fingertips and he can see it and he can taste it iron on his tongue his whole world is the feeling of an instrument in his hands and when he plays it it doesn’t sound right_

_he wakes up sick screaming choking and he doesn’t really wake up and he knows he will never wake up and he screams it bloody into the man’s face, angry angry angry, he is so angry and everything in the world is wrong and everything in the world is the look in his pretty eyes_

_he does not know his name. he has no name. he is swirling and false and not-there. his throat burns burns burns and somewhere distant he can feel it aching sharp at him. he is following behind a man and a woman and their horses and he can taste words that aren’t his and could be no one else’s slipping from his lips._

_he has no world and his world is this: swirling grey, gold eyes. flashes of remembering that ache at him like lyrics of a song. he is a man except he is not, and there is a great gash in his throat, dripping pretty red, and he presses it into his cheeks like it will mimic a flush. he has done that before in a life that was not his. he is flower-child-street-urchin-noble-nothing-bard how does it feel to drown one thousand times in your own blood how does it feel to taste it thick in your mouth how does it feel_

_JULIAN JASKIER_

And

He 

opens 

his 

eyes.


	5. Chapter 5

What is a ghost? 

A ghost is unfinished business. Jaskier has been waiting to wake up. 

He throws his head back, living and dead, in a scream, and there is something like a burst of light but opposite, like nothing coming from his mouth, a great wave of it deep and blank and empty, an absence that takes over takes over takes over until the whole room doesn’t exist and Jaskier doesn’t exist and Geralt doesn’t exist and Yennefer doesn’t exist and there is nothing to think or say or do that will make this understandable, this crushing sort of lack, and  _ then- _

And then the opposite. Just as overwhelming, scented with flowers and singing and light. Everything in the world, teardrops of it, tasting of honeyed mead. 

Geralt has the strangest feeling they have just seen everything Jaskier is, right down to the soul, and then he passes out. 

-

Waking up is as strange as it is familiar. There are three heartbeats: his, Yennefer’s, Jaskier’s. Jaskier’s is slow and Geralt can still tell, the weight of it, the rhythm of it, that it is his. 

The room is cold. He hurts, fully body. His neck hurts, his wrists- arteries severed, but he does not bleed. There is a weight at his side and it smells of forest and rage and something wild, and it moves wrong, twists wrong and unnatural like a shadow, and then he is closing his eyes again. 

-

He dreams of sweet wine and a goblet filled with blood. Blood magic is old and cursed and it rarely ends well. 

He opens his eyes. The whole room is crackling with something sharp, and he gets to his feet with some difficulty. (His wrists, his neck, his thighs- major arteries bleeding out.) 

There: Jaskier. Not a ghost, not a man. He is so pale and he is looking back at Geralt, eyes red in his face. He is so familiar and his heartbeat is slow, slow, slow. 

“Geralt,” he says, very soft. He is rough around the slice through his throat, gargling. Blood magic is old and cursed and it rarely ends well, and he has been used as a source for over a year, and this is Jaskier,  _ talking _ , not a shade, really there, solid, and the room spins before him. He feels very weak. Yennefer is motionless on the floor but he can hear her breathing. 

Three heartbeats. Three heartbeats. One is so, so slow. Jaskier’s eyes are red and his lips are red and he is sitting up on his table, scattered vials in front of him. 

Blood back to blood. Blood magic is old and cursed and it rarely ends well. Red eyes red lips 

(Jaskier smiles)

Sharp teeth 

(he tilts his head)

A Witcher does not sweat but there are cold fingers at the back of his neck anyways. 

(Jaskier stands)

Geralt does not reach for his sword. Blood magic rarely ends well and Jaskier is in front of him. He knows that if he reached out to touch he would feel solid flesh under his finger. He smells of forest and rage and something wild. 

“Jaskier,” he rasps out. He is bleeding and he is not bleeding- his blood strains inside him, laps like waves at a shore. Tension in the air, thick and hard to breathe. 

He does not reach for his sword. 

“You came back,” Jaskier says. 

-

Jaskier is Jaskier is Jaskier. Geralt’s jaw clenches with it. 

He smiles and his teeth are sharp and he moves in closer closer closer and he says: “aren’t you going to say sorry, Witcher?” 

Geralt does not reach for his sword. This is a choice and it is not a choice. His hand comes out, slow, and settles on Jaskier’s cheek. 

It is smooth and cold. Red eyes, red lips. Sharp teeth. 

Blood magic rarely ends well. 

There is something in Jaskier’s eyes and it is wild and it is frightened, too. He is afraid. “I missed you,” he admits, all rough gravel. 

“You can’t imagine what I’ve done,” says Jaskier. His voice is so, so quiet. A whisper pushed through ruined muscle. 

There is a long moment. He feels Jaskier under his palm, real. “I’m sorry.” 

Time has stopped for them, and it starts again, now. He draws air into his lungs, and Jaskier closes his eyes, and on the floor Yennefer wakes with a scream. 

-

One year ago, Jaskier died. 

He is wrapped in Geralt’s cloak, and his eyes are closed. He is riding on Roach. He keeps repeating this over and over: “you came back”. Amazed, half under his breath. Geralt doesn’t know how much he was aware of and he doesn’t want to ask. 

Blood magic is old and cursed and it rarely ends well. He cannot stop looking at his friend, so changed and small and brimming with wildness. 

-

“I was having a terrible nightmare,” Jaskier tells the both of them- his eyes are so  _ red _ , like fresh blood from an artery. He is lucid and not lucid. “So many people died.” 

“Not you,” Geralt says. 

“Yes,” he agrees, thoughtfully. “But I did.” 

Yennefer is pale. She looks at Jaskier. “What do you remember?” 

“Nothing. Everything. I can feel him, you know.” 

“Who?” 

The forest is so quiet. A Witcher, a witch, and something unnamed. They’ve gotten off the island, found somewhere remote to camp. 

“Jaskier.” He looks up to Geralt, so familiar, so strange. “I’d forgotten. But I’ll find him.” 

-

Blood magic doesn’t follow the rules. 

Geralt sleeps. Jaskier insists on pressing right up next to him, insists that he’s freezing even though it’s warm here in the West. 

“I don’t think you should,” Yen snaps. “Fuck, Geralt, you know how blood magic is and he practically-” 

He is blood magic. It’s in his veins and his eyes and pumping through his heart. Jaskier makes a movement like he’s going to strum his lute and pauses, reaches up to fuss at the hair that curls in his eyes. Geralt is so tired. 

“Hm,” he says, and allows Jaskier to crawl in beside him. 

Foolish. But Geralt wants him to be peaceful and he has missed him and a Witcher cannot always be armoured. 

He wakes to a weight on his chest and red eyes peering into his own. He does not reach for his sword. Perhaps that’s all they need. 


	6. Chapter 6

Hope takes root in his heart and blooms. 

-

Jaskier is not the same as when Geralt left him on the mountaintop, but there are moments when it’s like something shifts and Geralt can see him again. The shade he’d grown to know, the human he’d never called a friend.

For the first month, he is very quiet. He keeps his mouth closed, and he sleeps a lot, and his fingers are stiff. The slash in his throat knits back together. He picks a flower, puts it in his hair- red eyes, red lips, pale skin, a dandelion yellow behind his ear.

-

The bruxae are born, not made, but blood magic doesn’t follow the rules. Jaskier doesn’t follow the rules, either. He takes a rabbit, drains it dry, grins at Geralt with bloody teeth. 

A Witcher, a witch, and a vampire. Geralt knows how to kill them: a silver sword, a potion to make himself poison. But this is Jaskier. How many things has he been? A nobleman’s son. A bard. A human, a ghost, a monster. 

“Not a monster,” Geralt tells him, firmly. He is learning to read those deep red eyes, even though they are strange and guarded. “If you won’t let me call myself a monster, then you’re not one either.” 

Jaskier cocks his head. “Did you learn tact while I was away? Thank all the gods. With their help and mine, maybe we can make you halfway decent for human society.” 

“Hm,” says Geralt, which means “coming from you”, which means “you are still in here, you are still Jaskier, you are my bard just bloody”. 

-

This has always been their story. Yennefer is a silent guard at their side- she is a whole world of her own and she is everything and she wants everything but she leaves them for each other. A benediction, flanked by steel and magic.

-

Jaskier is not the same as when Geralt left him on the mountain top. He is stretched out and pale. His blood was used to kill and torture and maim and he felt every inch of it, and he died and came back, and he is upright at Geralt’s side. 

They stop in a little village, and Jaskier buys himself another lute and he plays and he does not drink from anyone. His song is a new one, one that Geralt had heard snatches of on the road, and it’s a little violent and a little wild, forced raw past a healing throat, and it whips the men in the tavern into a frenzy. There’s a little bit of magic in his voice, but there always has been.

Later, they are out in the forest. Jaskier is standing pale next to the trees, and Geralt keeps half an eye on him to be sure he won’t flicker out like a dream.

“I think,” he says, thoughtfully, “I can do this.”

-

Red-gold-violet eyes. They pass through cities and people part for them. They can tell as well as anyone that this bard is not a human: he starts to sing and they don’t care. He is sharp teeth and red eyes and a voice that wraps you up. 

Jaskier is not the same as when Geralt left him on a mountain top but he is still Jaskier, and looking at him is warm. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ok! so heres the deal: im fucking awful at chaptered stories, which im sure all of u noticed. i have never once in my life plotted something out. i wrote most of this at 4am and ive had several screaming crying breakdowns this week which im sure has slightly impacted my writing. aka: the beginning of this was ok, the end of this sucked. sorry

**Author's Note:**

> -no one prompted this im just a sucker for a good spooky horror fic 
> 
> -this is chaptered but i still apologize for my single fic of the day being both late and like. 1000 words. 
> 
> -if u liked this please leave a comment!! also if u liked this please send me an ask or a prompt over at redjewelsforeyes.tumblr.com
> 
> -next chapter should be up tomorrow!!!


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